Dueling with wax bullets was once an Olympic sport 100 Years Ago The shooters used wax bullets and no gun powder. Instead, the primer was all they needed to propel the wax bullet. Like fencing, the athletes wore a mask, and a hand-guard was fitted to the gun to protect the shooter’s hand. Looking at the photos in this TFB article, the two competitors seem to be a decent distance apart from one another, but this sort of event would still have me on the edge of my seat.